question best left unanswered
by Cid Dante
Summary: Martha asks why Rose is so special to the Doctor


do not own Doctor Who, the bbc do. Set before Martha meets the Daleks in New York on earth. Hope you enjoy...

"_What's so special about her anyhow? Why is she so different?"_

He regarded the woman in front of him, constantly wondering if she was really companion material or if she was just another stupid ape that he had managed to pick up. The woman was busy looking at the screen in front of her to really notice him looking at her, just as well.

Had she actually really known his body language then it screamed in fury. His normally friendly eyes and features were dark and cloudy but to Martha, it seemed like he was just in a reflective mood.

They had had an arguement about Rose Tyler and why Martha felt she was getting the short end of the straw when it came down to things. It was always Rose wouldn't do that or she would have the right words to say to make this better. Rose could have done that and apparently, Martha had got sick of it and had started the fight with those questions.

The Doctor was still seething in fury over it though his demeanour and tone told the woman that all was well. He had begun to get used to lying to her, it was so much easier and she swallowed everything he told her like it was the words from God Almighty himself. He didn't bother reminding himself that he had gotten her into trouble by lying about his home world but as time went on, it just got easier.

The Doctor sat down on his chair and sighed tiredly, "Anything interesting on the boob tube?"

He might as well try and be civil to her if nothing else. She had really grated on his nerves, constantly asking if she could bring her family on board for a quick visit. Okay, perhaps he should have been more polite but he didn't do domestic and he certainly couldn't handle another Jackie Tyler. His main gripe at the moment was, he didn't ask her to follow him. It was just supposed to be a thank you trip for saving his life back at the hospital which had extended, perhaps longer than it rightly should have.

She was nothing like her. Nothing at all. Smarter but the Doctor missed the wide eyed amazement Rose had shown when faced with new dangers and perils instead of the new replacement's happy acceptance of the entire matter.

That really was all that she was at the moment, a replacement. One that he could probably change in a second and move onto the next. Thinking that brought back memories of the bicker he and Rose had when they encountered Sarah Jane Smith back in that school. Rose asking would he dump her as soon as she became a burden, he had told her honestly that he could never do that but he couldn't grow old with the companions he went with, it was easier to leave them but he could never ever do that with Rose. He actually saw himself building a proper little life with Rose, travelling from planet to planet. From the past, present and leaping into the future. Rose had been a major part of that, she never wanted to sit in and watch the telly.

Martha Jones shook her head, "No, nothing really."

The alien Time Lord nodded, not that he really expected anything different. Perhaps he could dump her on the next planet...nah...well...no he couldn't. Not really, he was responsible for her as long as she was his guest on his ship. For as long as she travelled with him, surprising him with the odd spark of bright intelligence, then he would allow her to tag along.

"Are you sure you don't want to meet my family? My dad would love to meet you..." Martha asked quietly, not wanting to spark another row that could possibly see the end of her time jumping fun.

Another weary and age old sigh came from the Doctor, "I don't do domestic. When you travel with me, friends and family are left in the past or future. Depending on what particular time we're in."

"Bet you did domestic with Rose," Martha sulked and she knew that struck a cord with the brunette man.

"What Rose and I had was completely different from what you and I have," the Doctor growled from his seated position.

It was different. It was amazingly different. Rose wasn't just a companion, she was...he cared for her. More than any of his other companions, she had taught him how to feel alive when everything in his world was death. She had shown him a better way to live. When he took Rose back for quick visits to see her mum, it felt like he had a mum as well. Someone other than Rose who wanted to make sure he was alright.

The shop girl from London had taught death how to live again.

Martha wanted to roll her eyes at that, it was always different with him. So what if she wasn't this Rose girl, she obviously didn't think much about staying with him if she's abandoned him. Where was Rose now? This wonderful and mysterious Rose that was mentioned whenever the Doctor was talking to his weird little ship.

"Oh yeah, so much that she did a runner from you," somehow, deep down, Martha sensed that she had said something very wrong to the alien and for a brief second, she saw a dangerous and almost...predatory look flash over the pale features of the Doctor.

"You want to know what happened to her?" the Doctor crossed his arms, the sleeve of his brown pin striped jacket riding up a few inches to reveal the soft lines of his shirt cuffs, "Fine, started off when you stupid little apes thought the dead were coming to visit in the form of ghosts. Instantly, Rose and I thought something was off, we were right. I traced the location of the reported ghost sightings and found they were being called from a few hundred feet above Canary Wharf by Torchwood Headquarters. They'd been trying to open the rift to another universe."

"Is that where the robot thingy's came from?" Martha sat near him, studiously ignoring the stupid ape comment and crossed her own arms, "You know, the ones that looked like...giant pepper pot things."

She watched as the Doctor's jaw twitched, saw how hard he was trying to compose himself. Either he was trying not to rant at her for interupting or else he was not wanting to cry. It was something that Martha had noticed, he didn't talk about himself much. Only when pushed and she felt the last time they had a bit of a heart to heart was because he had lied to her about his home world still being in existence. He didn't tell her why it wasn't, just that it was now gone.

"No...yeah...All Daleks in this time period have been destroyed. I made sure of that. Anyhow, as I was saying," the Doctor dragged his hand down his face and took a deep breath, "We ended up in the Torchwood facilaity and after a round of applause they took me as a guest and began asking questions. That was when they showed me a ship from the void."

"From the void?"

"Nothingness. A place that has no light, sound or life. Just...nothing. Humans call it hell, my people called it the void. It exists outside of everything and that was were I sent the Daleks and Cybermen," the Doctor explained, "That was after I figured out what was going on. Torchwood opened the rift fully, allowing the ghosts that had been appearing over the world to completely materialise into the Cybermen. However, what we didn't realise was that a few had already managed to break through and set up shop in the building. Two people lost their lives then and it was then, when I realised how much trouble we were in at the moment and Rose was down in the room with the ship and the rift."

Martha nodded slowly, she had heard a little about that. Her cousin had worked in the building during that and was on the list of the dead. She had mentioned that to the Doctor when she first met him and he had said that he was sorry as though he had been responsible for her death in some way. Perhaps he had been but she wasn't sure. She pulled her purse out of her bag and tugged out a picture before sliding it over to him.

"That was my cousin," the medical student informed, "she worked there, did you see her?"

Brown eyes flitted over it for a brief second before thin lips pursed and then settled into a grim look, "I saw her. She was one of the first people to be killed by the cyber..."

No, he wouldn't lie to her anymore. He wouldn't blame the death of Martha's cousin on the Cybermen or the Dalek, they hadn't been the one who had ripped out the implants that had wound their evil tendrils through the delicate brain matter.

"Doctor?"

"I saw her," the Doctor repeated and braced himself for the slap or some kind of retaliation from the woman when he told her, "I tore the implant that was controlling her out of her ears, killing her instantly."

The brown eyes of the young woman standing in front of him went huge, the Doctor killed her cousin? That wasn't right. He was for life, he died to protect the people at the hospital by allowing that weird old alien to suck his blood out through a straw and now he was saying that he killed her cousin? She shook her head, no. A cold shiver ran down her spine as she tried to accept the information.

"I had to," the Doctor whispered, "the Cybermen were using her and another young man to override and open the rift further. During that time, the Daleks had managed to break free of the ship that was holding them in. Rose was trapped in the same room as the Daleks and the opening rift. I couldn't do anything to get to her."

_He lost her to the Daleks? Oh god...here I was acting like an idiot and he's mourning Rose's death,_ Martha felt tears well up in her, partly for the Doctor's loss and for her own.

The Doctor continued on, "However, little did I realise that my Rose had back up in the form of one Mickey Smith and his mate Jake from the universe the Cybermen were from. I headed down to them, wanting to wipe every stinking Dalek off the face of the universe...well...not really. I just wanted to get Rose out of trouble. As far away as possible from them, so I went down, avoiding the Cybermen that were now littering the building and who had literally set up a little shop for making more of Cybers."

"Did they come from the rift too?" Martha asked softly, "Mickey and Jake?"

"No, Mickey was...is...he came from this universe. Jake came from the alternate, they have zepplins there. We stopped or I thought we stopped a Cyberman rising there and had no chance of returning back to it. However, that damned Torchwood was available there too and they had little machines that allowed people to jump through the realities like stepping through a door. That method of travel was quite ingenius but it caused problems. The rift was spreading, making the two realities unstable. The more things that travelled through it, the more dangerous it became. The Daleks were making problems too, they wanted the touch of a time traveller and only three people on the planet had travelled through time."

"You mean to say that there's like, a pararell universe to this one? One where I become a doctor or where I get to be a footballer wife?" Martha smiled at the amazing possibility.

The Time Lord nodded, "Yeah. Rose, myself and Mickey went there completely by accident when the Tardis fell out of normal time and space. Poor girl's been through the wars and then some. Saved that world from the Cybermen, with an idiot proof plan and a mobile phone. Loved one who are dead here are alive. You might be completely different or you might not even be born. It's a different world with a lot of similarities."

_Wow, that is so cool,_ the young wannabe doctor thought as she briefly glanced down at the screen, another world that was almost the same. How amazing would that be to live in?

"The Daleks had access to 'Time Lord science' and at the time I had no idea as to what that meant," The Doctor wasn't going to waste anymore time on discussing the other version of earth, "They brought out the Genesis Ark and when Mickey fell on it by accident, all hell broke loose. Daleks had decided to fight the Cybermen because they were deemed inferior so had to be destroyed. The Cybers wanted to upgrade the Daleks to be perfect."

"Take it the Daleks already think they're perfect huh?" Martha tried to joke, anything to lift the cold air that had fallen over the Tardis during the conversation.

The Tardis seemed to be listening in to the story as well and Martha found it hard to believe that the ship was indeed alive. Machines were not alive and the vessel she was travelling in was not alive. Certainly one of the most amazing things that she had ever seen in her entire life but not enough to believe it was really a living breathing creature.

"Something like that," a sad smile struggled to reach his eyes, "They began fighting but the Daleks had an alterior motive. They needed a large enough space for the Arc to function and so they went above London and opened it when Mickey accidently fell on it."

Martha still remembered that day, the day the sky filled with those horrible aliens that had went about and killed so many people. She didn't even like the screeching of their voice, saying those chilling words. Exterminate...exterminate. A word that she would never ever use. They were more frightening than the Cybermen. They had just stood watch over people, guarding.

It was a day that people referred to as Doomsday and they were not wrong. Two metal aliens battling each other for control and trying to herd the humans they encountered as prisoners. She was lucky, she had hid in the hospital along with half of her medical training group.

She tried to finish the rest of the tale, "I remember that day, one minute the Daleks and Cybermen were planted firmly on the ground and then something caused them to lift from the ground. It was like someone had tugged on a bit of string. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Just so relieved it was all over."

"That's right," the Doctor confirmed softly, "though not the end of my story. Before I had the idea of sending them back into the rift, I sent Rose to be with her family in the alternate reality. Where I knew she would be safe with her mum and Pete who were already waiting. Jackie had went through with Mickey and Rose being Rose...well, she came back for me. Again."

"Again?"

"She saved me from the Daleks when I had pretty much given up on surviving. I was stranded roughly about 200,000 years in the future with no chance of getting through the raiding Dalek party. I was faced with the Dalek Emperor, taunting me. I had sent Rose home in the Tardis, telling her to have a fantastic life and to forget all about me and the Tardis. She was just to let the Tardis rust away and be buried by time, to allow her to die. Anything to stop the Daleks getting their grubby mitts on the time ship. She opened the heart of the Tardis, absorbed the time vortex and then used it to cross time and space to rescue me," a stray tear that the Doctor couldn't stop slid down his cheek, "to protect 'her Doctor'. Anyhow, as I was saying, Rose went off about how it was her choice staying with me and she wouldn't be left behind again. We were in it together to the end. So off we went, modified the rift so it send the hordes of Daleks and Cybers back into it for good. You saw the effects, it worked. Brilliantly, oh we laughed. Imagine seeing the Daleks and the Cybers flailing around with nothing to hold onto!"

The Doctor stopped and stood up, he walked over to a console away from Martha. Wiping away a tear, the memory was still to much for him to bear. It was painful, still far to raw to really talk about without any emotion but Martha had sat quietly throughout, perhaps asking one or two questions when she wasn't sure about something.

He leaned his full weight against the console and released a breath, "But...oh...we didn't laugh long. To activate the rift, we had to hold two heavy levers in place until the rift swallowed itself up. Had we not been covered in the radiation of the alternate reality, we could have been okay but we were and we weren't okay. One of the levers began to give, threatening to close early. Rose...oh, she decided to play the hero. I screamed at her not to but she wouldn't listen. She held it open, even when the rift started dragging her in...she...she held on tight."

He stopped there, his breath catching in his throat. A painful lump following it, his eyes stung with tears he kept refusing to shed and with the few he had already gave. Under his touch, he felt the Tardis shudder. The old machine knew how he felt, she missed her too.  
Martha stayed her distance, leaning over to see where he stood, "Did...she...did she get sucked into the rift?"

That would have been worse than being killed by one of those metal men or the Daleks. To spend the rest of your life with nothing but death as a companion, it would drive anyone insane.

"Rose always believed in her father," the Doctor struggled past his emotions, hating how he couldn't conquer them, "See, her father in this world was killed. We saw it happen, in fact, she asked me to take her to him. Rose had only been a baby when Pete Tyler had been killed but she sat with him until the end. When we went to the alternate, Pete was alive. Pete was wealthy and was married to Jackie, Rose's mum."

Martha was more than a little confused at this sudden burst of information from the alien, more so when he sniffed back tears and gave a bitter laugh. Surely there was laws or rules about meeting yourself in an alternate reality. Didn't one of you go boom or something? She mentioned that and received a look as though she had told him that one and one made three million.

"Not quite," the Doctor stayed his distance, in fact, he seemed to be getting further from her, "Only if you meet your past or future self and touch. I had a rather odd experience of being eaten by a reaper when Rose held the baby version of herself."

"How did that happen?"

"Jackie was ready for giving Pete a right good thump for calling her daughter Rose," a real smile managed to form as he recalled that memory, Jackie had been so close to thumping her husband for giving her child what she thought was a second hand name.

For as thick as Jackie could be, the woman could be spot on the money when it was needed. She had thought it best to completely ignore the fact that someone who looks alot like her daughter now had sat with her dying husband all those years back, until it really mattered.

Rose had shared that her mum had been against helping her get back to the Doctor when he had been stranded in the future with the entire Dalek army at the door until Rose had told her that she had been the one who had sat with her father and it was then that Jackie realised exactly what it was that the Doctor gave people. He gave them chances and he needed the chance to be rescued.

"Anyhow, Rose held her baby self and a reaver tore into the church that we had managed to hid in. Reavers only go for the oldest things first and when it saw that I was over 900 years old, it needed to get rid of me first."

It peeved him a bit when Martha said nothing about him being that old, she simply accepted it. Rose had been stunned but quickly gotten over it but the girl had been laughing after calling him gay for being smacked by her mum a few hours earlier.

The chance to talk about old memories seemed to calm him down and for that, the Doctor was grateful but he knew he hadn't told Martha what had happened to his best friend.

"As Rose's grip failed and she was just about to fall into the void," those damned tears came back to his brown eyes as he rushed out his words, "Pete appeared with the little machine that allows him to jump and he...he caught her and I lost her. He took her back with him to his own world, were she was safe. Seconds after that, the void closed. The Daleks and Cybermen were gone and I was left alone."

He wouldn't tell her how when he walked to the large white wall at the end of that room, he could swear he could feel her presence. Smell her perfume and almost, almost touch her hand as they probably stood in a mirror like way. How he walked out of the room like a condemned man and had sobbed as his strength left him.

Telling himself that she was safe didn't make the pain go away, didn't stop the pain in his two hearts and the tears that kept threatening to take over. There was one thing he would tell Martha though.

"I saw her again though...a few months after in Norway. The Tardis and I orbited a sun and caused it to supanova, just for one last chance to talk to her," he smiled warmly, "She told me how she felt and I think she already knew how I did even though I wasn't given a chance to say it back."

The Doctor covered the distance between them and offered Martha a cold smile, "You want to know exactly how special and different Rose is? She stayed with me after all the death that follows me and never once shied away. She travelled through time and space to save me even though it would have killed her. She stood up to the Sycorax, Daleks, Cybermen and even the Devil himself. Would you do that?"

Martha looked away, she barely knew him and he was asking such a direct question. Given time, she probably would but she barely knew him. She wasn't Rose and it wasn't fair to keep comparing her to the missing Rose Tyler.

"I face death and pain every day when I fight the evils on earth," the Doctor whispered, "Rose knew and understood that. Do you?"  
In her short time with him, she knew he fought the weirdest and horrible things she had ever seen but could she be that willing to do exactly what Rose had done? Sacrifice herself for others? She didn't know, could she? Would she if the time came to it?

When she had been in that tiny little carship thing underneath New New York, she had prayed the Doctor would come along and rescue her. Hoping against hope that he would pull something out of the bag and save them all from being made mincemeat. Would Rose have done something like that or would she have attempted something much more dangerous?

The Doctor didn't say anything but Martha could see the disappointment at the lack of an answer from her. He turned to face the small console on the Tardis and sighed heavily before giving it a hard thump, perhaps in frustration, Martha wasn't sure.

As the Doctor left the main control area, Martha called after him, wanting an answer but dreading it at the same time.

"If you had the chance, would you sacrifice me to bring her back?"

The slender alien stopped and lowered his head before ever so slowly raising it, "Do not ask that. That's not fair."

"But would you though?"

While the Doctor hadn't actually given Martha anything to be wary or concerned about, the look he gave her after he turned round certainly did. Brown eyes had turned cold and his face became unreadable. His voice devoid of emotion as though he had turned into one of the Cybermen. Did she really expect him to answer?

"Honest?"

"Y...yeah..." Martha felt the air grow far more colder as she heard the answer. The Tardis taking on the same coldness as the alien that piloted her.

"In a heartbeat."


End file.
